Word had spread through the trade routes that the Farragut was leading a convoy and that meant safety. First a dozen ships had joined, then twenty, then twice that again, until the convoy stretched beyond a distance at the Farragut’s fighter squadron could reasonably protect. A ribbon of freighters and patched haulers, their drives glowing faintly like fireflies caught in the exhaust of a greater beast. None of them were large ships, none of them were particularly capable. But all of them were grateful.

Elkader stood in the dim light of the squadron’s ready room. Across the room, Thorne was slouched on the sofa, unshaven, his flight suit half undone.

“Forty-one ships,” Elkader said. “They just keep coming, it’s fucking crazy.”

Thorne gave a dry laugh. “Forty-one ships to our sixteen fighters. No wonder I’m exhausted.”

Elkader did not answer. The silence stretched. Not awkward, not angry, just tired.

The alert light pulsed once. Then the alert from flight control on the bridge. The ship’s voice calling them back to duty. Elkader did not even sigh. She rose, set her drink aside, and said, “Scramble all flights.”

The ready room dissolved into movement. The pilots of 601 moved with the automatic precision of a well-drilled team, moving from their ready room in the Farragut’s hanger pod into the adjacent hangers, their fighters already replenished and ready for the next mission.

Elkader’s Valkyrie lifted on its repulsors, canopy sealing with a hiss. “Farragut control, this is 601, ready for deployment.”

“Cleared for launch,” came Kincaid’s voice over the comm. “Unidentified contacts approaching the perimeter. Vector three-eight by four.”

The forcefield at the hangar mouth shimmered and split as each of the fighters slipped through into the silence of space. The convoy hung against the starfield like a slow-moving constellation, drives glowing dimly. Out at the edge, three faint shapes drifted.

“Pilgrims,” Thorne said over comms, voice stripped of emotion.

“Hold formation,” Elkader replied. “Weapons armed, but let’s see what they do.”

They watched. The Pilgrim ships hung at the limit of detection, dark and quiet. No transmissions, no weapon locks. Just a presence. It was the watching that got to you, Elkader thought. Watching and not engaging.

After a few minutes the shapes moved off, engines flaring once before winking out.

“Why bother?” one of the pilots muttered. “Why keep testing us?”

Three days later.

The pilots of 601 lived in a haze of half-sleep. They had been flying three, four times a day, sometimes more. Most launches were false alarms: ghosts in the sensors, freighters falling out of position, radar echoes from debris. Or Pilgrim ships at the edge of the convoy, never engaging. But the adrenaline always came, sharp as a blade, and it never fully left.

Thorne grew quieter, though when he spoke the usual humour and perspective was edging into bitterness. “You ever get the feeling we’re not protecting them,” he said once in the ready room, “but escorting them to where the Pilgrims’ want them to be? Like their steering us along the trade route until the best place for an ambush?”

Elkader had looked at him, tired. “No.”

Thorne’s grin was crooked. “No? Then why do they always know where we are?”

“That’s why they call them trade routes, Jalen. It’s not a mystery. From a to b.”

The next alert came with no further drama, another alert, another expectation of flying without a fight at the end of it.

“Multiple contacts,” Kincaid’s voice on the comm. Again.. “Six so far, Elkader.”

Elkader did not think, she just got up again. “All flights, launch. Now.”

The deck flared with light as the Valkyries lifted, one after another, engines burning.

The stars filled with motion as the fighters maneuvered around the confusing mess of the large convoy. The Pilgrim ships came in fast, coordinated this time. Elkader rolled her fighter, caught one on her targeting field, fired, and watched it bloom into flame. Thorne’s voice crackled through static: “Two on your six, boss.”

“I see them.”

She banked hard and felt the inertial dampeners strain. The small Pilgrim ships broke formation. They were testing tactics. Learning, adapting, watching even as they lost.

“Farragut, 601 lead,” Elkader called. “Recommend convoy compress formation.”

“Acknowledged,” came Ayres’ calm reply. “We’ll move to back you up.”

The fight lasted twenty minutes. Then the surviving Pilgrims fell back into the dark, retreating ready to resume harrying the convoy again.

No one cheered.

Back in the hangar, the silence was heavier than usual. The deck crews moved without talking, checking the fighter’s hulls for microfractures, refuelling lines with shaking hands.

Thorne pulled on his flight suit, trying to get comfortable. “I can’t keep this up for much longer,” he said. “We need to find somewhere safe to stop. Or at least offload some of this convoy to be someone else’s problem.”

Elkader rubbed a hand over her jaw, watching her friend with concern. “I’ll talk to the captain,” she said simply.